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04th Sep 2021

Anti-trans protesters wearing suffragette colours boo Nicola Sturgeon

Kieran Galpin

Trans

Terfs are preaching to the choir, again

Anti-trans protesters booed Nicola Sturgeon, the only female leader of a UK nation, for the SNP’s willingness to reform the gender recognition act (GRA) which would give more self-autonomy to trans people.

The protesters gathered outside Holyrood ahead of Sturgeon’s questions of the new term on September 2.

It was announced last month that Scottish Greens and the SNP would reform the GRA within the first year of parliament to “ensure the process by which a trans person can obtain legal recognition is simplified, reducing the trauma associated with that process.”

Naturally, the Terfs came out to play under the guise of female safety, which they believe is under threat from trans women. Instead of groups like Women Scotland using their platform to work with the trans-rights movement in a bid for inclusion and safety for all women, they instead chose to boo the only female leader of the UK.

Apparently missing the irony, a horde of protestors, dressed in the suffragette colours, booed Sturgeon as she made her way into the building.

Speakers at the protest included councillor Caroline McAllister and LGB (Yes the T is intentionally missed) alliance member Rhona Hotchkiss.

Their list of demands reportedly includes keeping trans women out of sports teams and changing rooms. But as usual, protestors have missed the point entirely. The reformation of the GRA is actually to improve and streamline the process of self-identification, and not a ‘radical’ overhaul of female-only spaces.

If only there was some kind of platform where you could type things in and get answers…

“The current process requires people to provide a psychiatric diagnosis, intrusive medical reports about our bodies, and two years of evidence that we’ve been living as who we know ourselves to be,” Vic Valentine, manager of Scottish Trans Alliance, explained to the Guardian.

Valentine continued to say the GRA, “doesn’t impact the spaces or services we use in our day-to-day lives, and plans to change the law would not see trans people gain any new rights we don’t already have.”

Hopefully next time, the protestors read the agenda before seeing the word Trans and organising a rally.

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